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October Secret Subject Swap - Fall

Welcome to October’s Secret Subject Swap. Again 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.

Sit back, grab a cup - don't be afraid, it's not spooked - and check them all out:

Over two years ago Colin started showing interest in letters, and we spent some time looking for things starting with an A, a B, and so on. I ended up throwing together a slide show of those pictures and called it Colin's Summer ABC.In fall we did the same thing:

This pretty much sums it up. However, since this isn't a vlog, I'm actually going to write down some of my thoughts.

Many people just love summer and are sad when it ends. I am not one of them. Humidity, summer sun and I aren't very good friends. I don't tan well, I have moles - one of which turned out to be a melanoma and needed to be removed last year - I hate to sweat like a pig, I don't feel all too comfortable in a tank top, shorts and flip-flops, let alone in a bikini (because: muffin top), my eyes can't take the bright light, and I can't sleep when it's 80°F in our bedroom. No A/C at residential houses and many office buildings either. Don't get me started on mosquitos.

Clearly my life improves as soon as temps drop below 70°F at night. Baking doesn't transform my kitchen into a steamy sauna anymore. You'll get the most gorgeous blue skies.

This summer C decided he is done with sleeping in pull-ups. I usually need lots of laundry detergent. Since then I need more. Last year's quest for milk jug substitutes taught me to purchase large containers!

As I am writing this, I'm having a meltdown. I can't find last years ghost lights anymore!! I have a large plastic container full of skeletons, pumpkin candles, large furry spiders, a pumpkin shaped cake pan, but no ghost lights. If I remember correctly I had at least four or five, and they are too spacious to fit into that box, so I must have placed them elsewhere. But where?

I was at the attic, I was in the basement, both places are already decorated for Halloween, btw, complete with cobwebs and general spookiness. I went through piles of stuff that still needs to be, you know, purged (will it ever end?) like the fluffiest light blue baby blanked I couldn't get myself to give it away. I felt that this stuff was actually laughing at me. "Hahahaha, now that you need something you care to pay us a visit when all year long you tend to neglect us? Hahahaha!"

Oh, and yes, I am 100% sure I did not throw them away. Why would I, I put so much effort into making them last year! It wasn't just detergent bottles, I distinctly remember having purchased ridiculous amounts of distilled water and having bottled that distilled water into regular water bottles so I could make ghost lights out of the distilled water bottles!

I'm considering looking up a hypnotist. They may bring my memory up to speed by taking me back to the day I cleaned up the Halloween stuff last year. They can do that, right?

On the other hand, stuff can't just disappear. I even found my displaced passport. It was of course after I had filed for it to be missing and got my new one.

You know what? I'll just move on and hope that by the time that post is due I'll be able to let you know that they've mysteriously showed up!

There is something I wanted to show you. A friend's 3 year old daughter painted this, I think it's fabulous:

Fall is also about food. As much as I like pumpkin as a symbol and because it looks pretty, I don't want to eat pumpkin anything every day. I like mushroom better. Pasta sauce, pizza topping, risotto ingredient, you name it!

You know it's fall when your Starbucks store sells Anniversary Blend! Yummy! I used some for the chocolate cake, too!

Popular Posts

Welcome back to 20 Days of Chill. Today's prompt is #Hashtag, and I thought I'd find out about the top 20 most popular hashtags on Instagram (Source: Huffington Post)

That is pretty generic if not lame! I think the only one I've ever used is #happy, actually it was #100happydays.

Of course I am intrigued now. How do I figure out my own most popular hashtags? Good thing I know people who know stuff. A blogger friend recommended Union Metrics, an app that analyzes just about anything you want to know about your Social Media Accounts! What day and time is best to post, who your biggest fans are, the post with the most likes, the post with the most comments,...

Unfortunately the free part of the tool only teases you, and you end up subscribing...

Surprise, recurring themes / hashtags were most popular. And this is what I paid 29 bucks for? Note: cancel account, get free one, like Iconosquare:

Welcome back, to the letter G of this year's A-Z challenge! We spent yesterday in Florence, Italy from where it's just a 6+ hours' train ride to G is for Geneva, Switzerland.

Geneva is in the French part of Switzerland, therefore you're crossing the "Röstigraben". What's that?

Literally it means hash brown ditch, and I can't believe there's a contribution on Wikipedia!

We commonly use the expression to point out the language gap. In the larger part (63%) of Switzerland we speak Swiss German. The Western part on the hash brown map is the French speaking part of Switzerland, about 23%. And of course it's not just a question of language, but also of culture and political votings.

There's a lot of stereotypes that one group of people says about the other. The Swiss Germans say that the Swiss French are on the lazy side, don't feel like taking orders or keeping deadlines, are chaotic and unreliable. Plus their language is really impossible.

I'm sure there are lots of tutorials out there, videos even. So I'll be quick.

Here's what you need: A plate A disposable plastic bowl, the size you want your igloo to be A disposable plastic cup for your igloo's entrance A bag of miniature marshmallows A lemon A sh**load of powdered sugar Patience

This is how it's done: Cut 1/3 off your cup, place it on the plate. Cut the shape of your "entrance" in your bowl, use some tape to fix

Squeeze your lemon, just use a couple of drops and mix them into the powdered sugar. You want a thick consistency. Now start building! Dunk your mini marshmallows into the sugar/lemon icing and basically build your way around and up your plastic structure!

The marshmallows are really forgiving. They allow another one to squeeze inbetween them if necessary! To be honest I expected this edible craft to end up at CraftFail like so many others of my projects. Hey, I am happy to reaport that this one turned out just fine! :-)